Rating: 
Summary: The message and the material don't mix
Review: I found the film to be very confusing. For some reason, just as things got really really bad for young Jim, the music would swell dramatically, and we would get closeups of several characters looking very very very moved. I was often unsure of why they were so moved, and why the heavenly choirs were singing so sweetly in a Japanese POW camp. When I left the theatre, I bought the book, and read it. Then I understood what had been going on. Spielberg had done everything possible to sanitize the novel, and turn it into a tale of a young boy's triumph of the spirit, when it is actually the tale of a young boy's spiritual death. Mr. Spielberg tends to make motion pictures that avoid the often disturbing elements in the novels they are adapted from. Jurassic Park has a message about the hero's need to love children, rather than a statement about technology run amok. Nowhere are Spielberg's sanitizing impulses on clearer display than in Empire of the Sun. It is reminiscent of the notorious "happy ending" versions of Romeo and Juliet that were performed in the last century.
Rating:
Summary: Spielbergian Denial
Review: When I first saw this film, I thought it was confused, but okay. I wasn't quite sure what the film was trying to say, something about the triumph of the human spirit as embodied in the young Jim, played by Christian Bale. I thought the book might clear things up, so I read it. The more I read, the more I wondered if anyone concerned with the production had read it. Far from the Spielbergian tale of transcendence through suffering, I got a tale of never-ending terror through suffering. The novel is a clear-eyed depiction of the death of the human soul, and the final triumph of Objects over Humanity. Spielberg didn't want to make that movie (It's such a downer!!) so he imposed a faux spirituality on the film that does not sit well with the source material. Where the novel treats airplanes as mechanical harbingers of death, the film shows them as gorgeous spiritual objects, even angels. And so on. No element from the novel is spared this Hollywood sanitization. It often does not make sense: what is that scene in which Jim sings to the young kamikaze pilot supposed to mean, anyway? And what is that song he sings?Bottom line: the film is a rather antiseptic mess that tries desperately to avoid the dark message inherent in it's own source material through over-gorgeous cinematography and a sugary-soaring score.
Rating: 
Summary: When Spielberg does serious WW2 films, he's a master!
Review: I've read the book and seen the movie. I read the book after seeing the film and I was quite pleased with how faithful the movie was. I saw it with a friend who had studied Chinese history and was pretty skeptical about the movie before we saw it. he came out of the theather gushing praise and I was too. The transformation of the boy (Jim) into a man who is completely reduced to the bare ammorality of survival is stunning. Jim's gradual slide into madness is amazing to see. I really liked how his fascination with airplanes was portrayed in the movie and the aerial scenes had my hair standing up. As someone mentioned before, here is the seed of Schindler's List and even Saving Private Ryan. See this movie!
Rating:
Summary: Personally, this is the best movie I have ever seen.
Review: Steven Spielberg did a brilliant job with an otherwise less than exciting novel. Critics don't do this movie justice. The directing was superb, and the acting was wonderful especially by the young but talented Christian Bale. Visions of war planes in the sky and of a child reaching out to touch them will remain with me forever. I highly recommend this movie! END
Rating:
Summary: CLASSIC
Review: EMPIRE OF THE SUN is a classic motion picture, directed by Steven Spielberg from a screenplay by Tom Stoppard, based on the novel by JG Ballard. This film is filled with stunning imagery and the most eloquent dialogue I've ever heard in a modern motion picture. Christian Bale certainly gives one of the most powerful performances ever delivered by a young actor. This is an epic film about one boy's journey into manhood told against the grand tapestry of WWII. Spielberg was right when he said, "...they don't make movies like this anymore." They sure don't. END
Rating:
Summary: Spielberg's most underrated film.
Review: Even though he had made "The Color Purple" not long before "Empire of the Sun" Spielberg was still considered a lightweight whose main talent lay in "escapist" movies. For most of the snobs who review films this one did little to change that label. I've loved this film from the first time I saw it. I read the book which was indeed a better story than the movie, but then most books are. By their very nature they are more complex than films and go into much greater detail (If "The Hunt for Red October" had followed every detail of the book it would have been a 5 or 6 hour movie), yet here Spielberg, in the time allotted, weaves a compelling story of a young boy learning to survive in a very contradictory world. To him, while WWII China is horrifying, he still finds in it a sense of adventure. Being treated brutally by people (the Japanese) whom he holds a puerile admiration for (mainly due to his fascination with fighter planes). The young actor, Christian Bale, who plays the lead turns in a very convincing performance and John Malkovich and Nigel Havers are excellent in supporting roles. The soundtrack is worth picking up also for the Welsh hymn "Suo Gan" and the closing choral music. All in all a superior piece of film-making.
Rating:
Summary: Weird and unique Masterpiece
Review: Usually people love or hate this movie, indeed is impossible not to be hit by `Empire of the Sun' in one sense or in another. Personally I think that it's a unique movie and in its way a masterpiece, but not easy to understand. Indeed to understand well the movie it's good to read the book `Empire of the Sun' by J. Ballard ( one of the most important and controversial writers of our age ). In the book J.Ballard recall as a semi-autobiographic story his early years in Shanghai ( China ) when, after Pearl Harbour at the age of eleven, he was imprisoned by the Japanese in a concentration camp outside Shanghai for three long years. It's not a common story, Ballard recall his memories and tell what he saw as a child with the perspective of a child, it's a psychological trip and in this sense it's a true story. This is the first thing that I want to point out, for all it's strangeness and absurdity this is a true story. The book and the movie tell what really happened in the mind of Jim ( James Ballard ) during those years. As the book does, also in the movie, things and facts are distorted by the point if view of a child with a lot of imagination. A strange child intrigued by the loneliness and sadness of the Japanese. The movie doesn't procede with an objective representation of reality, what you see is what Jim see, or better, his hallucinations, the reflex of reality in his mind. The Movie is full of these hallucinations and symbols. The first is the `City of clowns' . The rich British living isolated in the International settlement of Shanghai, surrounded by some million of poor chinese coolie fighting to survive. Jim feels that they are out of place and strange as clowns in the eyes of the Chinese. Then there is the abandoned house, where Jim live alone like a ghost for some time. Footprints in the talc is all what remain from his disappeared parents. Slowly his previous secure world recede from him like the water recede in the pool in his garden. At first Jim's growing survival instinct is jammed by the moral restraints of his education. But soon, when he meet Basie, he learned what he has to do to survive. Basie is not a character, he is a ghost creature, an mirror of Jim's own dark side: the ability to do everything to survive without suffering any moral consequences. In the movie this is well represented when we see Basie and Jim wandering the detection center like vultures, but the book is more explicit in this point. When Jim arrives in the camp, where he will stay for three years, he is already a `survivor' like Basie, and find easy to adapt to the camp's life, while the adult British live like ghost with their mind immersed in their memory of England ( like the Victors ). He become what they call `the war child' and they despise him because he has learned to enjoy the camp. In some interviews Mr. Ballard told that this was exactly what was his feeling with camp. It's strange, but not so strange if you think that Jim was born in Shanghai and never went to England. Soon all what remain to him from his early years is a faded image of his parents and the sad song he used to sing as a choir boy. After years of imprisonment the only world he knows is the camp and its simple rules, his heroes become the Japanese pilots of the nearby base. They are his enemies, but they represent the impossible dream of escaping the misery of his life. Again what we see is not a real representation of Japanese pilots, what we see in the movie is the dream like image of the Japanese pilots in Jim's mind, an idealized representation of the solitary and brave men he admires , dreaming to be one of them. With this view you understand why are wrong those people that say in the movie there is lack of reality, this is not the pont. Many also find absurd that Jim, in a clandestine way, thinks that it's better that the Japanese win the war so that the camp can go on. But J. Ballard himself told this was what really happened to his mind. After years of imprisonment the only world that existed in his mind was the camp, and the Japanese were the people that bring the food in the camp, without Japanese there will be no food...it's absurd but true. Ballard himself told that the most difficult thing for him was not going in the camp, but was going out of the camp and facing the reality of the world outside. I think that no other story like this shows how absurd can be the war, especially for a child. Many criticize the absurdity of some situations in the movie, but this instead it's the heart of the story. All what happens around Jim and in his mind is so absurd, but, in same time, it's true as the final hallucination: the flash of the Atom bomb. I think that it was very difficult to transfer a so deep and dark book in a satisfactory movie, but Spielberg did a very good job with the story and with the young actor. For me, this is one of the best movies I ever saw, but it's not a movie for everyone. If, after watching the movie, you feel a deep sadness and you are willing to watch it again, as it happens to me, then you entered in the spirit of the movie.
Rating:
Summary: Very moving film!
Review: While this isn't a film I would enjoy seeing all of the time (too depressing) it is a very moving story dealing with an aspect of WWII which many of us may never have considered. It is an excellent film, not only for what it does say, but for the questions it poses and leaves the viewer to answer on his/her own. I saw it for the first time years ago and couldn't get it out of my mind. It's multiple messages have literally haunted me ever since.
Rating:
Summary: Very well done in all aspects
Review: Beautifully shot, nicely scored, well acted, and - above all else, well written and put together. Script and dialogue are definetly above average, and are executed as they should be. The film's scenes flow coherently, and tell their tale well.
In sum, it is a very stylish production throughout. A moving and interesting story. It isn't the only film of its kind, but it does stand out as one of the best. In my personal opinion this is a better achievement for Spielberg than Schindler's List. It stands out from the vast mass of mediocre films that are ceaselessly churned out as something that has more to it.
Recommended.
Rating: 
Summary: ANOTHER CHILD ACTOR SHINES IN A SPIELBERG FILM.
Review: *** 1/2 stars rating for this movie. With "Empire Of The Sun", Steven Spielberg built the foundations for his best movie to date "Schindler's List", Spielberg took the strongest points in "Empire Of The Sun", for example: excellent music, outstanding cinematography, great set designs, remarkable performances (Christian Bale, John Malkovich, Miranda Richardson), so it's fair to say that "Empire Of The Sun" gave to Spielberg a lot of experience for subsequent productions.
Usually in Spielberg's movies, child actors play a significant role in the plot ("E.T.", "Close Encounters Of The Third Kind", "Jurassic Park", "Artificial Intelligence", "Hook"), and "Empire Of The Sun" is not an exception. Christian Bale is the young actor who plays the lead role in the film: Jamie, a corky, inopportune kid that snoops around everywhere getting him into trouble. As the film moves along, Jamie gets more experience, bravery and intelligence, an excellent performance by Christian Bale I must say (perhaps his best yet).
Other actors shine in "Empire Of The Sun", John Malkovich is the standout, although there are other big names like Joe Pantoliano and Miranda Richardson (Ben Stiller appears briefly). Definitely the film is a survivor's story, and becomes more relevant when the survivor happens to be a little kid that lost his parents and his former lifestyle.
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